perpendicular

Diagram representing the mathematical concept of perpendicularity – two lines, or planes, meeting at a right angle.

At a right angle; also, a line at right angles to another line or to a plane. Everyday examples include lamp posts, which are perpendicular to the road, and walls, which are perpendicular to the ground.

For a pair of skew lines (lines in three dimensions that do not meet), there is just one common perpendicular, which is at right angles to both lines; the nearest points on the two lines are the feet of this perpendicular.

Perpendicular

Period of English Gothic architecture lasting from the end of the 14th century to the mid-16th century. It is characterized by window tracery consisting chiefly of vertical members, two or four arc arches, lavishly decorated vaults, and the use of traceried panels. Examples include the choir, transepts, and cloister of Gloucester Cathedral (about 1331–1412); and King's College Chapel, Cambridge, built in three phases: 1446–61, 1477–85, and 1508–15.

In such late examples as King's College Chapel and Henry VII's Chapel at Westminster (1500–12), the walls have become a mere panelled screen, mostly filled with glass, all the weight of the thin vaulted roof being carried by stone ribs converging on to very bold buttresses, capped with tall pinnacles which help to neutralize the downwards and outwards ‘thrust’ of the vaulting ribs, or (if there is no vaulting) of the timber roof-trusses.

Perpendicular features may also be found in the naves of Canterbury Cathedral and Manchester Cathedral; the nave and west front of Winchester Cathedral; and the choir of York Minster.

Other examples of the style are Sherborne Abbey; the west front of Beverley Minster; St George's Chapel, Windsor; the roof of Westminster Hall; and several of the older colleges at Oxford and Cambridge.